


Sazerac

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, but not really, cocktails, first dinner, vaguely canon, will is actually an excellent chef thank you very much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A quick clean of the kitchen involves 90% of the items that don’t belong in it being tossed under the sink for later retrieval. As Hannibal makes his way towards the porch to the calamitous greeting from all of Will’s seven canines, Will checks the stove, checks the glasses, checks his hair, and makes it to the door just as Hannibal does. He opens it with a smile and a practiced shove of his foot against the tallest dog that seeks to rush out and greet their visitor properly.</i>
</p><p>Will has Hannibal over for dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sazerac

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sandraque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandraque/gifts).



> For the lovely darling [sandraque](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sandraque) who asked for some lovely fluff of our boys on their first dinner together! We hope you like it bb :D

The only thought that passes through Will’s head more often than _fuck_ is that he never should have done this in the first place.

It was an honest offer. Friendly. Well-intentioned. And like such things, Will can feel his suggestion paving his way right to Hell.

You always cook for me, he’d said. Let me do it for once.

Just come over when you’re done with work, he’d said. As if Will had even remotely allowed himself enough time to put a proper meal together for a man whose dinner parties were enviable affairs, boasted about by the cream of Baltimore’s crop as if the goddamn mayor had hosted them. Hell, the mayor couldn’t even get herself invited most of the time.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, really, if not for the fish. He’d taken the entire day off to go out to the river, what felt like a rare treat consider how work had been lately. He figured he’d catch a couple of brook trout, take his time enjoying the quiet, and have the rest of the day to cook them. And one of the dogs was sick on the floor, then trod through by several others, and he blew a tire pulling out of the drive, and worst of all, the fish didn’t show. Not until late in the day, the light turning golden on the water, when he’d all but given up hope. Only by the grace of having forgotten his phone was unable to call Dr. Lecter and have him not come at all, and saving grace came in the form of a fifteen-inch fish and another just after, slightly smaller.

He stands in the kitchen now, fanning a towel over the pan where the two fish lay steaming. Scaled, gutted, and cleaned, but otherwise left whole, he’d rubbed their insides down with salt and pepper, thyme and parsley, lemon and olive oil. Though the scent filling the house is rewarding, he frowns a little first at the dried herbs, certain Dr. Lecter won’t approve, and the relatively sparse meal.

He’s almost convinced himself to try slinging something else together before he hears the crackle of gravel in the drive, and lunges for the liquor cabinet instead.

He had drank beer while he was working, and now Will looks at the counter in horror at apparently just how many. He is far from inebriated, not even a little buzzed, with them spaced throughout the afternoon, but the evidence speaks of horrors he does not want Hannibal Lecter imagining.

A quick clean of the kitchen involves 90% of the items that don’t belong in it being tossed under the sink for later retrieval. As Hannibal makes his way towards the porch to the calamitous greeting from all of Will’s seven canines, Will checks the stove, checks the glasses, checks his hair, and makes it to the door just as Hannibal does. He opens it with a smile and a practiced shove of his foot against the tallest dog that seeks to rush out and greet their visitor properly.

“Good evening, Will.”

Hannibal is dressed, as always, entirely impeccably. Even in his most expensive suit, Will wouldn’t come close to fitting in at the doctor’s dinner table. So instead he had worn a fitted shirt, and his best jeans, dark boots beneath to give a semblance of grounding. But Hannibal… Hannibal is in a suit of very dark emerald, enough that it appears so only in light. The shirt beneath is an off-white eggshell color, the tie just a little darker cream. His hair is combed back, and in his hands he holds a bottle of wine Will thinks would fit right in at an auction house where the minimum bid is more than his car.

“Hi,” he manages, before his smile widens and his blush deepens. “I mean - good evening, doctor. Come in.”

“Thank you,” Hannibal responds. He holds the wine out, cradled in both hands, and Will watches as the muscles beneath Hannibal’s eyes draw up in gentle amusement. “But please, no titles tonight.”

Will takes the wine in one hand and holds the door with the other. He strains for elegance at keeping a leg in front of the sea of dogs as Hannibal enters, and lets the screen door slip closed behind. Wet noses and wagging tails accost Hannibal as he enters, and Will chokes down a swallow.

“They’ll settle in a bit,” Will promises. He carries the wine towards the kitchen, boots thudding over the uneven hardwood floors. “Make yourself at home. I thought - I mean, we can have wine. The wine you brought.”

“You thought?” Hannibal coaxes, unbuttoning his jacket.

“I thought I’d make a drink for you. For us,” Will shrugs, letting go a weak laugh. “Which is to say that I’ve already made them, just now. But we can have the wine -”

“I would love to have whatever you’ve made.”

The words pull Will’s spine straight and shorten the muscles of his stomach, creating a firm tug in his belly that stretches down to further regions. He turns towards the counter, briskly sweeping a bit of sugar into the sink, and takes up two rocks glasses filled with a dark amber liquid.

“Sazeracs,” he says. “You don’t live and drink in New Orleans for as many years as I did without learning to make these.”

Hannibal takes the offered glass and brings it to his nose to smell first, letting his eyes close. He allows the flavors and scents to mingle, to arrange in the way that they should, align and fold. Only then does he take a sip and savor the sharpness. 

Will watches him, the way Hannibal’s eyes narrow just enough when the taste hits stronger than the doctor had expected, when his palate so used to wines and home-fermented beers is assaulted by something so… other.

Will sips his own without incident and smiles when, on the exhale, Hannibal hums his appreciation.

“I applaud your ability to find genuine Herbsaint liqueur,” he says, smile warming his expression though it barely lifts his lips. “A worthy hunt, if I remember correctly.”

The younger man’s lips part, the taste of anise caught against his tongue, and though he knows his cheeks have rosied once more, he doesn’t care. Will touches his tongue to the corner of his mouth to catch a drop of the heady cocktail, and he ducks his head with a laugh.

“I have to make them order it for me,” he confesses. “That and the rye. You could use any rye whiskey really. You could find other herbal liqueurs - Pernod. All of that would make a fine sazerac but it’s not the same without the real thing.” He draws a breath, eyes skimming over Hannibal as he takes another sip, before Will mirrors the motion. He draws his lips back over his teeth in pleasure at the burn of it, and muses, “One of my few indulgences, I suppose.”

Hannibal raises an eyebrow at the phrasing but says nothing more. He takes in the house as Will gestures for him to step further in. The dogs still flock around him, nosing against his legs, walking backwards in front of him until the doctor stops and ducks his head to look at them, and immediately three of them sit down. Will sighs, clicks his tongue, and with a whine and another click, they stand to move aside.

“They’ve been vying for treats all day,” he apologizes. “I don’t cook as often as I like to, and usually when I do it’s for them.”

“For them?”

Will laughs, bows his head and holds his glass with both hands. “In truth, it’s cheaper than store-bought, and better for them if I know what goes into it.”

“Quite right,” Hannibal says, making his way to the table, already set for two, no candles on it though Will had considered several times. They rest, now, beneath the sink, and - for one terrifying second - Will wonders if he accidentally kept one lit.

“It has been a long time since I have been invited to dinner,” Hannibal says after a moment, smiles a little more when Will pales at the words. “It seems that perhaps I take myself too seriously. Few people care for a serious guest.”

“And yet I imagine it’s those same people who make themselves conveniently available when you’re cooking,” Will answers with a snort. He’s no more fondness for rudeness than the doctor; despite often being the source of it, it’s always another name crossed off a long-unfurling list of people with whom Will feels no obligation to spend time.

Dr. Lecter - Hannibal - has surprisingly remained unmarked in Will’s mental Rolodex.

Will gathers Hannibal’s plate from in front of him, his own in turn. Taking them both to the counter and trying with great pain not to notice the dusting of thyme left across it, sticky with lemon juice, he sets them aside for now. The fish are taken from the oven, still sizzling on their pan, and Will hopes his shiver doesn’t show when he hears Hannibal draw in a soft breath from behind him.

“Trout,” Will tells him. “Brookies, but this early in the season the meat should be especially good. The skin flaky.” He shakes his head and dismisses his own words, plating the fish - one for each, an overabundance. “I think you’re less serious than you give yourself credit for.”

“Oh?”

“Mm,” Will agrees, with himself, but nevermind that. “You have a very positive outlook on remarkably unpleasant people and events. It’s hard to have that without having a sense of humor. I think that people think you’re serious because your jokes go over their heads,” he considers, returning to the table with plates in hand. “I also don’t think you mind that.”

Hannibal allows his eyes to linger on Will as he bends, as he sets the plate before him and then his own. Only then does Hannibal look down at his meal.

It is simple, just a fish laid clean against the plate. No salad or potatoes or decoration. It looks as it is, a fish caught in the brook nearby and made at home, tied neatly across its belly with string. It is entirely charming, entirely rustic, and Hannibal could not be happier that Will did not attempt to woo him with a candlelit dinner and a meal he had never made before that would have, perhaps, turned out good enough to eat but hardly more.

No.

Will does not impress people with opulence and finery. Will has never once presented himself as anything or anyone but what and who he is. Hannibal lifts his head to look at Will as the other seats himself, watches the way warmth fills the man’s cheeks as he reaches for his cocktail again - a very smart choice considering their dinner, considering the mix of flavors Hannibal knows will mingle well.

It is thoughtlessly perfect.

“This smells divine.”

And of course, Will shakes his head. Casting curls into his eyes, he pushes his glasses back up again and takes a sip, holding it on his tongue before he sets his glass back to the table. Despite his immediate dismissal though, some pleasure pulls up the corners of his eyes - whether from the precisely made drink never shared with anyone here before, or from the praise that he knows damn well might be prelude to more.

He lifts his cutlery, and severs the tidy string lacing the fish closed. Steam rises and on it the scent of herbs and lemon. But most of all - and the subtler, more difficult scent to capture - Hannibal inhales the sweetness of the fish itself as he cuts his own open. Silken green grasses and clear, fresh water, gilded by sun play behind his eyes when he closes them.

A smile quirks, softly, as he imagines Will there, too.

“What secrets you keep,” Hannibal murmurs.

Will’s smile pulls a little wider, and though self-deprecation comes as readily to him as breathing, there is an unmistakable and well-earned pride in his accomplishment. Not only a satisfying meal, not only his own work paying off, but impressing the renowned Dr. Lecter, purveyor of fantastical and unfathomable culinary delights.

No. Not Dr. Lecter.

“Thank you, Hannibal,” Will murmurs around his fork. “But you might try it before you lay it on too thick.”

The doctor graces Will with just a look, lingering but comfortably removed when Will looks up to meet it.

The fish is tender, juicy from the lemon and the herbs and salt that had forced the fish to sweat. It is just bland enough to make the cocktail work to make up the effort, hardly enough to make the meal unpleasant. It is anything but.

Hannibal savors the way the flesh flakes against his tongue, the way the salt catches against his lips, coarse and sharp. The meal is entirely exquisite in its simplicity. There doesn’t need to be anything on the side, no garnish and no salad, no filling root vegetables. Everything is as it should be, in all the right amounts and flavors.

Another look to Will, another lingering of the eyes on the way his throat works when he swallows, the way his jaw tenses as he chews. There is a slight tilt to his lips that suggests a smile, comfortable and pleased. Will looks, in a word -

“Beautiful.”

Hannibal watches the profiler blush in trying to figure out if he is referring to dinner or the man who made it for them, as the doctor puts another flaky piece of fish between his lips. Will watches the way his doctor’s lips curl around the fork, not only the meat. He takes in every drop of flavor, olive oil and the fish’s own juices, every flake of thyme and speck of salt.

Will’s voice carries on his sigh, before he can swallow it back down again with another sip of his sazerac. He supposes that Hannibal doesn’t mind about the dried herbs after all.

“It wouldn’t do,” Will says, “to not know how to prepare what one catches. I suppose exceptions can be made if you live with someone who can cook, but it seems a waste to only know half of the experience. The thrill of the catch, it is that,” he laughs, flaking free another forkful of trout. “But it’s only half of what you can know by learning out to gut and scale, how to cook and eat what you’ve worked for.”

Hannibal’s fork stills for the length of a heartbeat. Will notices, and snorts.

“It’s just salt and pepper. Lemon juice, like all fish. Thyme.”

“Improvisation,” Hannibal murmurs. “Intuition. Too many that call themselves chef are little more than cooks, following rote repetition from recipe. While an important skill, it is not what makes one a talented chef. One must understand the ingredients innately.”

Will hesitates, only for an instant, before drawing another bite of trout from his utensil.

“You make the ordinary sound extraordinary.”

“And you have a bad habit of convincing yourself you cannot possibly be the latter,” Hannibal counters with a smile, setting his wrists against the table as he waits for Will’s response which, predictably, begins with the finishing off of his cocktail.

“You can’t argue that it’s not a simple meal,” Will tries, and Hannibal inclines his head, agreeing.

“I cannot. But it is that simplicity that elevates this dish beyond one that any other would have made. Simplicity is as powerful as silence in a musical piece. Without it, the sound is merely noise, endless and repetitive. But silence, silence allows for anticipation. For that breath before a new movement begins.” Hannibal sets his knife down to reach for his glass once more. “There is such a thing as too much presentation. It is called pretension.”

A smile, then, directed at his own cooking, his own parties, and Will finds he can’t help but smile back. He lets the moment linger, filled with fragrant foods and the tang of liquor. His stomach fills and his blood warms, and with every passing moment, Will feels less like he’s dining with his psychiatrist, and more like he’s dining with a friend.

A close friend.

And with the next thought that comes, Will is sure that the cocktail - atop a bellyful of beer - has gone to his head. They take their time, mostly silent, picking past delicate bones to savor skin and flesh, down to the tail of the fish, up to the cheeks. Will watches in wry amusement as Hannibal eats the eyes, too, declining his own.

“Too strange,” he murmurs.

“As much a part of the fish as any other. And a delightful texture.”

“A texture I’m happy to let evade me,” Will grins. He rises again to take his glass and Hannibal’s in turn, fingers pressing past the rim to carry it. It’s uncouth, nothing he would have let himself do two drinks ago, but he lets it slide. What’s more, Hannibal lets it slide.

Will gathers his bottles, special to him, and begins to mix. Practiced motions, so long performed that they are entirely effortless, balancing rye and anise, sugar and citrus. A bright, pungent flavor that he knows he’s nailed the moment he catches a particular heady scent, when everything is in order.

“You said something,” Will murmurs, “a while ago.”

Bravery, whiskey-hot beneath his skin, burns his cheeks red but does not immolate his nerves enough to stop him. He presses his tongue against his lips, brows drawing inward. If he can’t stop his own voice, he can at least take comfort in his back being towards Hannibal.

“You didn’t say that the fish was extraordinary,” he says. “You said that I am.”

“I did,” Hannibal agrees. He turns to rest one arm against the back of his chair and crosses his legs, watching as Will’s shoulders shift before he straightens them. “That is not to say, of course, that the dinner was anything but.”

When Will turns back, Hannibal’s smile is languid, warmed by the whiskey as it is by the sight of Will so flushed yet still so entirely confident. He walks, now, with a tilt to his hip, he isn’t wooden as he so often is at crime scenes, before he allows his pendulum to swing. He is almost cocky, younger, and when he sets the drink down before Hannibal, the other takes it as Will’s fingers linger, and brushes up against them.

“I also know that you are rarely a man of poor taste, Will - you know you are extraordinary.”

There is a pause as Hannibal takes a sip of his new drink and hums pleasure when it melds with the remaining flavors of the fish. “But I fear you have been too often told that what makes you extraordinary is what makes you other, an outsider, and that the extraordinary qualities you possess have become buried beneath cynicism and personal displeasure.”

Will snorts gently. “Are you psychoanalyzing me?”

Hannibal just smiles more and ducks his head at the chastisement. “I should learn to leave my work at work, I’m afraid.” He raises just his eyes for a moment. “But I stand by what I say. You are extraordinary.”

Will’s cheeks are ruddy enough from liquor, from warm conversation and a full belly. The blush that heats him from deeper within blends with the rest, and he sets a hip against the table. He’s got no interest now in impressions - he’s already made a better one than he’d ever have anticipated - and so pays no mind to the plates or the fine, sharp bones left on them. He doesn’t want to do dishes.

He wants to make another drink for Hannibal, and another, and another just so he can bring them to him and feel their fingers touch again.

“Liquor loosens your tongue,” Will remarks, eyes narrowing in amusement.

“Perhaps I have had too much,” allows Hannibal, though he doesn’t remove his hand from the glass.

“‘Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough’,” Will quotes, washing down the words with a quick swallow.

Hannibal’s smile lengthens. “You’re a fan of Twain.”

“I’m a fan of whiskey,” laughs Will.

He starts to pull himself from his lean against the table, but strong fingers ensnare his own and he stops. His heart beats in his throat and he sighs past a mouth made suddenly dry. To deny that there was a flirtation would be an evasion. To deny that there has been an attraction - a fascination - from the first moment they met would be an outright lie. Knowing that isn’t enough to stop Will’s heart from hurling itself against his ribs or slow his pulse from a machine-gun fire under his skin. Will’s never been good at deceiving himself.

He wanted this, from the moment he offered.

And only now - like the first time a kid catches a fish and holds it squirming and slippery in their hands - Will realizes that he’s not sure what to do with it.

Will’s jaw clicks tighter. His fingers whiten against his glass. He doesn’t pull his other hand away from Hannibal but he doesn’t turn to face him again either, instead watching the way the lights blink red across the surface of his drink. He touches the glass to his teeth, and finishes the cocktail in one long pull.

“Are you my psychiatrist,” Will asks, voice rough with alcohol, low enough to hide its tremor, its uncertainty, “or are we simply having conversations?”

Hannibal’s thumb strokes gently against Will’s palm, warm and rough from work and from living a life that wasn't merely handed to him. Slowly, the motions shift to Will’s wrist, feeling his pulse hammer quick there, and Hannibal relishes the shaky sigh from the man above him as he lifts his eyes to watch him again.

"I enjoy our conversations," Hannibal says. "And it would be a shame to refer you to a colleague for treatment yet -" He draws a breath and holds it, turning his hand just gently so that Will’s fingers splay and Hannibal's gently slot between them.

"I suppose we are two men sharing a drink after a wonderful dinner," he says quietly, bringing Will’s hand to his lips so that his breath tickles against his knuckles as he speaks. "And company after a welcome invitation home."

The kiss is gentle against Will’s hand, and then Hannibal's fingers loosen to allow Will to pull away, should he want to; Hannibal's confession and unspoken offer lingering between them.

For a long moment, Will doesn’t move. His fingers remain laced with Hannibal’s, their palms touching so softly that it tickles. He accepts the clamor of his heart and the pulse that becomes a beehive drone in his head. He knows the taste of fear better than anything else, and yet for its familiarity now, there is a curious sweetness to it, too.

Acceptance, Will calls it. Undemanding and unconditional. Simple.

_As powerful as silence in a musical piece._

Will curls his forefinger and strokes Hannibal’s palm. Broad and smooth, warm beneath his fingertip, he then stretches his fingers beseeching. All at once, at the brush of lips across his knuckles once more, Will’s breath leaves him in a gust of laughter.

“Whiskey’s made us brave,” he murmurs, unseating his glasses as he spans his other hand over his face.

“It warms the blood,” agrees Hannibal. His words send shivers across Will’s skin, breathed softly over his hand. “Heightens the senses at the same time as it dulls sense itself. Perhaps it has freed us to pursue that which we might not otherwise.”

“It’s made us foolish.”

Hannibal hums, touching his lips to each knuckle in turn, to the fine bones that run the length of Will’s hand. A pride flickers through Will when he squeezes Hannibal’s hand, and hears the man’s breath deepen.

“‘Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination’,” he murmurs.

Will can’t help but laugh, nevermind how desperate it sounds as he drops his hand back to his side, and turns to face Hannibal. He doesn’t meet his eyes, not yet, but watches the way their hands turn together, the perfect fit of their fingers. Will’s always been a fighter, stubborn and stroppy, but in the moment that they stand just so, he knows that he’s lost.

There’s no shame in defeat when it comes with such sweet consolation.

“More Twain,” Will remarks, idly. “Not the author I expected you to seduce me with.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” The doctor asks him. Dark eyes up and smile curled just beneath them, his lips remain pressed gently together, not even a tilt, yet Will feels his entire body shiver from just that look alone.

“I think,” Will laughs, turning his fingers with Hannibal’s a moment more. “You’re succeeding.”

Hannibal just blinks, allowing the corners of his mouth to work into a gentle curve, before pushing his chair back and standing before Will properly. Their hands still joined, their bodies close, and though Will deliberately tilts his head to have his glasses bisect his vision, he is looking at him.

Hannibal brings his free hand up to stroke a curl back behind Will’s ear, leaving his glasses where they are.

“I’m glad,” he murmurs.

Will’s inhale pulls long from the touch, the words, the nearness of Hannibal. His spine straightens, and despite the near-nauseating tightness far down in his stomach, Will lifts a hand to rest on Hannibal’s. He keeps it pressed to his cheek, unshaven and flushed, and tilts his head so that his lips brush Hannibal’s palm.

“I feel like I should play hard to get.”

“Harder,” Hannibal corrects, and Will’s smile widens before he can stop it.

“Harder,” agrees Will. “Harder to get than inviting you to dinner, fishing for you, cooking. You know I thought you’d be gone by now.”

“Oh?”

“Mm. Unimpressed by my hospitality,” Will murmurs. “I hardly measure up to the kind of company you normally keep.”

Hannibal makes a sound in his throat, like a hum but also something else, something a little more pleading, perhaps. Something weaker that Will had not at all expected to hear.

“It is expected,” Hannibal says after a moment. “It is rarely a pleasure once the cooking is complete.”

He does not need to add that this - in its simplicity and comfort, in its honesty and gentleness - was very much a pleasure. He doesn’t need to. Will sighs out quietly, closer, and Hannibal strokes his thumb against Will’s cheekbone, just beneath his glasses. He is close, warmed by whiskey and company, loosened from his tensions by both.

Will lifts his head a little more and Hannibal smiles, licks his lips and holds the bottom one gently between his teeth before taking a breath.

“This was, in fact, something I much prefer over -”

Warm lips meet his and Hannibal decides verbosity is perhaps unnecessary with a man who understands everything and everyone so well. So he kisses back instead, hand spreading warm over Will’s face and against his hair. Will sinks heavy against him and leans up, fingers catching the lapels of his jacket, holding to Hannibal as if gravity itself might vanish as the very ground seems to have done. They taste of anise and thyme, of lemon and whiskey, sharp overlying soft. Their mouths meet in a slow joining, a unison that Will always imagined they might find here as they’ve found it in every other way together - a whole once severed, now merging to one once more.

Will stumbles as he leans harder and Hannibal is forced to take a step. Straightening with a shiver when Hannibal’s arm secures his waist, Will spreads his hands up his doctor’s chest and over his shoulders, looping his arms around. Their lips part, together, an easy tempo to allow the touch of tongue, the curve of a smile into their kiss. When their noses bump in a twist of their mouths, both breathe a laugh.

Will’s very pulse seems to tremble, like the earth beneath the footfalls of horses. Brightly sparking beneath his skin, the sensation spills from him in a moan when they part enough to breathe. Hannibal leans, touching their brows together, and his smile tugs wider as Will murmurs:

“Extraordinary.”


End file.
